Social Bookmarking: Still a Thing

While Twitter is a great place to discover new things, and RSS readers are excellent for following the things you've already found, what about the things you don't want to forget? Social Bookmarking has been around for years, (Delicious was one of the first in 2003), and it's still the best way to keep track of anything with a URL.

Both Delicious and Diigo are ways to keep an organized index of both the resources you've read and those you're still waiting to get to. You can even share URLs with one click using the browser plugin.

Changes on the Horizon for Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts

If you're tuned into news regarding all things G Suite, you may have heard Google Hangouts will be discontinued in the near future. This message is somewhat misleading. More specifically, Google Hangouts will become "Classic" hangouts as they transition to the newer iteration Hangouts Chat designed for organizations using the enterprise G Suite (as opposed to the public gmail.com). This new iteration will appear first to Enterprise clients, which includes G Suite for Education, before eventually replacing Classic Hangouts at some point in the future.

If you have used Google Hangouts in the past, you currently have the ability to download and install Hangouts Chat for Windows desktop, and Android, iOS. It is not yest available as a desktop install for Mac, but may still be used through your Gmail homepage. Keep in mind, also, it is only available for your lclark.edu account and not for your personal gmail.com account.

Hangouts Chat will bring increased functionality, including features like dedicated virtual rooms, threaded conversations, and progress tracking (similar to Slack). More importantly, these features will be integrated with the existing Google Suite and designed to work seamlessly alongside apps like Gmail and Google Docs. We'll keep an eye on updates and provide additional information as it becomes available.

Six Tips for Taking Off Your Academic Writing Loafers and Putting On Your Blogging Sandals

Image source

Blogging isn't academic writing, and academic writing isn't blogging. That distinction is in the best interest of both of them. If you're used to the format and tone of academic writing, and have been asked (or assigned) to create a blog post, it's important to understand how blogging is different. From the mind of a former blogger and avid blog reader, here are a few tips to get you started.

Sum It Up in a Tweet (hypothetically)

Have a core idea of your subject and be able to sum it up succinctly (140 characters is a nice goal), and make it your title. It gives your readers reason to read, and it also helps them know what to take away and how to engage you. There’s a balance, of course. You want to be informative and engaging, without creating sensationalist clickbait.

Examples:

• Why I’m still Obsessed with Survivor After Watching all 450 Episodes
• I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot

Write How You Talk

It runs counter to what we’ve learned about academic writing, but it’s key to blogging. Feel free to use the first-person tense and allow yourself to be conversational. Using your own voice only becomes problematic when you’re talking about yourself in your own self-interest. Using your voice can be engaging when you’re making a bigger point through your own experience.

Examples:

• Mara Wilson - "Are You Still Acting?"
• John Metta - I, Racist

Hypertext as Citation

You don’t need to explain everything in your text. Bloggers often use links to other sources to create context, reinforce their assertions, or sometimes even call attention to a an exception or counterexample. Of course, be sure that you are accurately representing your sources, and don’t go overboard. If everything is special, nothing is.

Examples:

• Cracked.com - 5 Problems In The Background Of Every Superhero Movie
• Forbes.com - U.S. Open Finals: Three Reasons Why Novak Djokovic Will Beat Roger Federer

Text Isn’t Your Only Tool

You can embed videos, images, social media, GIFs, slideshows, and many other types of content. Sometimes showing (or watching) is better than telling. The trick is finding a way to combine it all together in a way that creates clarity rather than clutter.

Examples:

• MindShift - Five Critical Skills to empower Students in the Digital Age
• 45 51 Ridiculously Easy Ways to Use an HTML Embed Code 
• Part 1 - Rich Multimedia
• Part 2 - Social Media HTML embed codes
• Part 3 - Top Lead Generation HTML Embed Codes

Create a Dialogue

Whether you’re creating the initial content or responding to existing content, be sure that you’re fostering dialogue and community. Invite inquiry with your assertions, and challenge those assertions through your comments. You never know, you just might spurn a global discussion.

Examples:

• You May Have Seen My Face on BART (Which led to this) 
• What Color is this Dress? (Which led to this) 

Stay Engaged

Jorn Barger, the man who “invented” blogging created his first blog as a way to meet like-minded people and share links that interested him. In addition to putting content out there, be sure you’re being a content consumer as well. While there are a number of ways to do this, my method consists primarily of three tools:

• Twitter to connect with people and organizations, and discover new resources through retweets.
• RSS (Feedly is my tool of choice) to follow my favorite subscription content. Kind of like a daily newspaper. 
• Diigo as a way of tagging and saving the most interesting content that I don’t want to forget.

An ounce of prevention...

After graduating college, I moved to West Hollywood to study improv comedy at The Groundlings. I used my Twitter feed to test material, all of which was humorous and well-intended within the context of my community. Several years and career changes later, after having success in the startup world and battling Lyme disease, I landed my dream job: CTO of Jeb Bush's political operations. Unfortunately, my Twitter feed was unearthed, spun completely out of context to make me appear as someone I am certainly not, and I lost my job. I created Clear to make sure situations like mine never happen to anyone ever again. 

- "Clear" Founder Ethan Czahor

Yes, an in-development app called "Clear" will scan your social media accounts for "dumb"

comments that could prove potentially damaging to one's character. As wonderful as it is that such things exist, at the same time we must acknowledge the band-aid this is for the primary problem. Whether or not you are vying for a public office or position, perhaps there are certain things one perhaps should not say on public forum. But where does that knowledge come from?

Understanding the culture (not to mention potential consequences) of social media is a key aspect of being a responsible digital citizen. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we're going to invest our efforts in our students, we might also consider the importance of giving them the knowledge they need to avoid the silly social media mistakes that can ruin careers. 

If you aren't sure where the lines of decency are online, these 25 Things You Should Never Do on Social Media, are a good place to start. After you know what not to do, consider this post by Brandon Grasley on professional use of Twitter, as well as Doug Peterson's response. Both are EdTech professionals and have some fascinating, and occasionally contrasting, advice.

As useful as "Clear" may be, if you're a responsible digital citizen, you hopefully won't need it.